Tuna Noodle Casserole Reviews

My mother came from a long line of New England women who cooked from scratch, but with four kids in the early 1950s, she quickly embraced canned cream of mushroom soup as the all-purpose binding sauce for casseroles, which were the backbone of her meal planning. Tuna noodle was the hands-down family favorite, which was a boon to my mother because she could make everyone happy with the contents of two cans (tuna and soup) and a partial box of egg noodles. When I'm feeling nostalgic, I make it for my own family. I have to admit I now prepare it with my own sauce, embellishing it with extra mushrooms and a little Sherry for flavor.

As written, this is surprisingly deficient in the tuna component. One can of tuna for 4-6 servings? How about 3? I also added frozen baby peas and diced red & yellow peppers, and used Panko crumbs blended with low-fat three-cheese blend for the topping. Plain Silk soy milk also worked nicely in the sauce, and it didn't hurt to use a 50/50 combo of butter/oil for the roux.

Great base recipe. Followed recipe with the addition of 1 clove of garlic added at the time mushrooms were added. I got to tasting things before preparing to assemble Too bland for me. When I added salt and pepper to taste I also sprinkled in some cayenne. Perfect! Instead of doing veg on the side, I opted to mix in a cup of peas and a cup of shredded carrots as well which gave the dish more color. I also added a shake or two of cayenne to the topping. I think this would have been fine without the veg mixed in, I was just lazy, but it does seem to need a bit more than salt and pepper. Like others, garlic and cayenne seem to be nice additions.

Classic comfort food. Nice flavor but a little bland for my tastes. I used 2 1/2 cans of tuna instead of just one to boost the protein. I swapped Panko for the bread crumbs and used only 1/2 cup instead of 1.5 cups and it was plenty. Used vegetable broth instead of chicken stock. Used skim milk because that's what I had. It was plenty rich. Not crazy about the 792 calories and 87 percent of saturated fat RDA in one serving, so next time I will replace one tablespoon of the butter with one TBSP EVOO to sautee the onions/shrooms.

I made this on a cold rainy December day so I made several substitutions to make use of what I had on hand and the results were delicious! Instead of the mushrooms and roux, I substituted Amy's Cream of Mushroom soup. I skipped the sherry. Added chopped carrots to the onions. But the best was swapping out a homemade lobster stock I had in the freezer for the chicken stock. The aroma of the lobster stock was promising and the flavor of the casserole was a lot more more complex. Also used Sargento's 6-cheese Italian blend instead of the cheddar and French's Fried Onions instead of the bread crumbs. Will definitely make this again!